Bicycle Graveyard

The city of Oxford is filled with the decomposing carcasses of abandoned bicycles. The amputee victim missing a wheel, the cripple whose chain and derailleur are irreparably snarled, the scoliosis sufferer whose frame is warped beyond even the most modest functionality, the gimp with a flat tire and the blind bike who has been stripped of the legally required bike lights. Then there are the thousands of orphans who have long since been deserted by their owners. They sit abandoned in the bike racks, collecting dirt and rust as they are rudely jostled about by shiny new bicycles looking for safe purchase on the bike racks.

The new bikes resent the cast aways, as slots in the racks are at a premium in a town where dozens of bikes are stolen every week. One student allegedly conducted an experiment by repeatedly cutting the lock to his own bike in public to see if anyone would stop him. In 17 tries no one ever detained him. One gentleman merely looked at him and said, “hey, are you nicking that bike?!” and then continued past. But in the corrosive English rain the orphans waste away until they are so dilapidated, so rickety and so decrepit that even the thieves aren’t tempted and the police can’t be bothered to collect them. They merely proliferate, choking out the new bikes and slowly wasting away.